Monday, 9 April 2012

Sometimes a scene in a story has
nothing wrong with it (nothing obvious, anyway) and yet it doesn’t work. It’s a
necessary scene, important to the story, but it feels flat and uninteresting.
People who read it will notice it’s a bit lacklustre, but not really know why,
or how to fix it.

Usually it’s a more sedate scene,
a moment of discussion or reflection, maybe dialogue heavy, but artificially turning
it into an action scene doesn’t feel right.

For those instances, I offer the following techniques to make a flat scene more immediate and engaging.

1. Silent Movie — Read the scene
so you know what it’s about (of course, if you’re into revisions you probably
have it memorised anyway). Put the text aside and go over the scene in your
mind without any dialogue. View it like a silent movie. What are the characters
doing?

Ifthey’re sitting at a table, or walking in a
park, something arbitrary and meaningless, then consider giving them something
more interesting to do. You can talk and do stuff at the same time.

2. Actions Reveal Character — Whatever it is your characters are doing (even if it’s just sitting down
chatting), does it tell the reader something about the character? If characters
are just doing stuff the way anyone might in that situation, you are wasting
an opportunity.

In real life, people do what needs
doing. In fiction, they do whatever you decide they should do.

Let’s say Ellen is talking to her
daughter Kelly about going to the school disco (do they still have those?). In order to make it feel less static, maybe Ellen is
washing the dishes as Kelly begs to be allowed to go.

If Ellen is just washing dishes
in a normal fashion, even the most beautiful prose won’t make it very
interesting. However, if she starts off inspecting dishes that have already
been washed and are stacked in the drying rack, chooses one she feels isn’t
washed well enough, and then re-washes it (all this happens while she argues
with her daughter), then that tells you something about the kind of person
Kelly has for a mother.

That kind of opportunity is
available in every scene you write.

3. Opposition — Whatever a person
is doing, just telling (or even showing) the reader what’s happening isn’t
enough to make it interesting. Sometime it is, if the thing they’re doing is
unusual or unexpected, or educational or illuminating. But if you introduce a
difficulty into the process, if there’s someone or something working against
the protagonist accomplishing their task, it becomes more interesting.

This doesn’t have to be anything
to do with the main storyline or the antagonist. If your MC offers a girl a cup of coffee and then
finds he doesn’t have any in the apartment, that’s enough to make an everyday nothing
scene into a pivotal moment.

However, problems shouldn’t be so
easy that they can be instantly and predictably solved. And how your character fixes
things should again in some way reflect who he is as a person. Don’t waste an
opportunity to use action to reveal character.

4. Don’t Hold Back Information —
If there is some element of the story you’re holding back, try stating it
clearly and unambiguously. This may feel counter-intuitive, but raising
curiosity by implying there’s a secret to be learnt is a difficult thing to get
right, especially for less experienced writers.

In most cases knowing what a
character has learnt, or what’s driving them to do what they’re doing, makes a
story stronger and more engaging. I’d say 90% of withheld information doesn’t
live up to the build up. It’s far easier to tell if a plot point works if you reveal
it as soon as the character becomes aware of it. And if it doesn’t work, dragging it
out and then revealing it down the road won’t make it any better. In fact it
will just piss off the reader.

5. Give Other Characters A Life —
Having one character hold court while everyone else just feeds them loaded
questions can end up feeling contrived and unrealistic. Your main character is obviously the
most important person in the story, but that doesn’t mean everyone has to treat
them like the centre of the universe.

Not that you should create multiple
subplots and tangential storylines for every minor character, but working in details can make it feel more immersive.

For example, if a cop visits a witness, they don't have to be just waiting, doing nothing (although unlike Law & Order, they don't have to be loading boxes into the back of a van either).

What a character was doing just before the scene where the MC enters can
influence their attitude, behaviour and actions.

Not all these tips will apply to
every scene or character, but I think most stories will benefit from bearing
these techniques in mind as you revise and edit.

These are great advises that I'll be sure to follow the next time I end up in a pickle. Thanks! Also, thanks for following my blog. I'm also a follower and can't wait to see what new interesting things you post. Happy Easter!

I particularly liked the first tip, replaying a scene in your mind as if it's a silent movie. Many writers often forget that you can have dialog at the same time with action, and needlessly separate the two. The little trick you describe certainly does prevent that from happening.

Great tips. I love to throw in really random stuff for my characters to do - like origami. Or in one story a woman who used to stare at pictures on the wall - I have no idea why, but in every scene she was looking at the walls.

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